Uniquely Normal by Robert J. Bernstein

Author:Robert J. Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future Horizons
Published: 2017-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Hitting a home run. Of all the strategies I deployed, Mitch’s favorite was baseball therapy. He came in one day talking obsessively about a $450 bat he’d found online, so I suggested we visit a local sporting goods store (yes, the boy was drawn to the top of the line). Once there, it was a replay of the electronic car episode: The salesman explained the relative virtues of the bats in stock, even saying outright that, for a kid Mitch’s age, a $50 bat was every bit as useful as one costing nine times as much. Still, Mitch was convinced that a $450 bat would be better.

“Look,” I said. “You like baseball, right?”

“I love baseball. Love it, love it, love it.”

“So next time, should we go out and hit some balls?” Mitch said that would be cool. The following week I took him out to a baseball diamond, handed him a mitt, and started hitting high fly balls in his direction with an ancient Louisville Slugger that probably set me back 8 bucks. I noticed that Mitch would always twist aside as the ball came his way, moving either left or right but never right under it. His catches, when he made them, were awkward and much harder to execute than they had to be. “Mitch,” I said, “I can show you an easier way to catch the ball. Want to see?” I suggested he get directly under the ball and try catching it that way, then demonstrated several times. It worked: Mitch began catching fly balls with ease. In his excitement, he actually thanked me for the tip.

“Mitch,” I said, “you needed help with something, I saw what the problem was, and I told you how to fix it. That’s what your teacher is trying to do in school: She’s trying to help you. If you can accept that you aren’t perfect and that you could sometimes use some help, like today, catching fly balls, you might like school a little more, and you wouldn’t need to reset so often.”

“Yeah, but she’s different from you. She says things in a different way.”

“Well, what would you like her to say in order to help you?” He pondered this a while before speaking.

“I want her to say, ‘I can show you an easier way for you to do that math problem, Mitchell.’ ” I told him that made sense to me. And it also made sense to his teacher, who agreed to try explaining things differently to him. I coached her in how to speak to him, avoiding phrases that wouldn’t bother a typical kid but that might trigger Mitchell’s shame and anger. She caught on quickly and said she’d try it and let me know what happened. She called the next day to say she’d used the exact words Mitch had quoted, and for the first time, he accepted her advice without getting riled. Their relationship was different after that.

Things calmed down at school. After 6 months of sessions, Mitch was able to tolerate the notion that he was less than perfect, and his tantrums ceased.

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